mental toughness | The Caleb Barney Collection

On resilience

I read a quote/meme on LinkedIn recently that said, “Instead of prioritizing teaching kids to be resilient, we should focus on eliminating traumatic events.”

While I think that the person who said this is coming from a good place, I disagree with it wholeheartedly.

Absolutely, I wish there were less traumatic events in life. I wish there were no school shootings, I wish there was no bullying, etc, etc.

But we can’t control everything – including what others do, say, or think. If we don’t try to teach kids to build resilience by overcoming defeat and by seeing/facing traumatic experiences, eventually, trivial events will seem traumatic to them. If the worst thing that happens to them is they get a “B” on their report card, that will be considered traumatic to them. After all, nothing else bad has happened to them, so they have nothing else to compare it to. That becomes the most traumatic event in their life. How will they handle it? They can try harder, or they can play the victim card (which it seems is what society caters to).

We can’t stop death. What happens when a kid faces the death of a loved one? It’s already hard for them (and it always will be/should be). But if they have never encountered any challenges along the way, do you think they will be more or less equipped to handle it?

So, while I do want their to be less trauma in the world, I think it is imperative that we still focus on teaching/building resilience and mental toughness. As John F. Kennedy said, “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.”

Life can be difficult. Instead of wishing for it to be easier (less trauma), make yourself stronger (mentally, physically, and emotionally) to handle it.

Two important factors for success

In my mind, there are two prerequisites for success: hard work and resilience. If you have those two qualities, you can succeed in nearly anything in life. Obviously there can be limiting factors defined by your physical or mental capacity, but many things can be trained/taught to at least get you to an above average level. You just need to have the proper mindset going into the activity.

Train your mind to be stronger than your emotions

It doesn’t matter how much you want something, if you don’t train your mind to be stronger than your emotions, you’ll constantly be taking one step forward and two steps back.

Think about wanting to get in the best physical shape of your life. First, you need to set a SMART goal. Then, you need to figure out why that goal is important to you. After that, you need to put a plan in place to achieve your goal. During the planning period, you may be doing research to complete the perfect plan (which doesn’t exist), but that should not stop you from getting started (done is better than perfect). Lastly, you need to find an accountability partner who makes sure you are actively and consistently working towards your goal.

If you let your emotions take over (especially your negative emotions), you’ll find an excuse to not do what you know you need to be doing! It feels better (at the time) to stay in your warm, comfy bed and sleep in. It feels better (at the time) to eat another serving or to have dessert or to have a bedtime snack. It feels better to sit on the couch and watch tv or scroll on Instagram. For every short-term pleasure, there is a long-term consequence. And if you really want to achieve your goals, you have to train your mind to be stronger than your emotions (and just doing what feels good in the moment).

So what’s more important to you? A little extra sleep? Or getting up, keeping that promise to yourself, and striving towards your goals?

Trust me, in the end, you will feel so much better about yourself knowing that you set a difficult goal and you achieved it. You persisted through the ups and downs. It was simple, but it wasn’t easy, and not many people are willing to do what you do to get what you want.

Train your mind. If you listen to your emotions, listen to the positive ones that are pushing you towards your goals. Use those! But steel your mind. Make it so strong that your negative emotions cannot overcome you when you put your mind to something.

Facing adversity to minimize entitlement

The sooner you can allow your children to experience adversity, the better off they will be. Ideally, they should face small problems/hurdles to overcome, with the hurdles gradually increasing as they are able to mentally and physically overcome them.

If you shield them from every pain, if you protect them from ever receiving negative feedback, they won’t be able to withstand even the slightest pain when they grow up. Imagine how embarrassing it will be when they are eight years old and still don’t know how to share toys/games. Or when they cry for not getting their way when they are nine. Imagine them being a poor sport when they lose a game because you always let them win.

They need to understand rejection, defeat, and not always getting their way. If you always cave in to every request (candy, buying them games, etc), they will expect life to do the same. But that’s not how life works and they will be in for a rude awakening when they finally figure that out. That’s why so many people who are entitled. They think they deserve something just because they are them. They weren’t taught proper manners and expectations at a younger age and have brought a child’s mindset to adolescence (and beyond).

Pain is subjective: How to get comfortable with the uncomfortable

“The reason his fights look so easy is because his training was so hard.” – Paraphrased from Joe Rogan when he was talking about Floyd Mayweather.

Train to make the uncomfortable not phase you. If that is your baseline and you’re used to facing obstacles, it will become your new normal. But to someone who hasn’t faced those same difficulties, when they suddenly are thrown into a tough situation, it will be harder for them mentally, physically, and emotionally.

How do you get comfortable with the uncomfortable?

A huge part of it is mental fitness. Mental fitness is more than just being mentally tough. Being tough (or being able to endure) is just one aspect of your mental fitness, but being able to understand concepts, to think outside of the box, to have a good memory. and to be flexible in a changing environment all contribute to being mentally fit.

The other part (the “easier” part) is physical fitness. Again, you want to be physically tough and able to hold up to pressure, but physics fitness also includes strength, endurance, flexibility, mobility, balance, coordination, having a healthy heart and joints, etc.

If you are mentally and physically fit, it will be easier to overcome challenging situations. So what are some things you can do to become fit?

Train your body consistently to lift heavy weights for low reps, to lift light weights for high reps, to sprint short distances at fast speeds, to walk/run/bike long distances at slow speeds, to occasionally work with very little sleep, to occasionally work with very little to eat, to think fast and make quick decisions, to analyze and think slowly, to deal with the heat, to deal with the cold, to read/write/draw, etc. These are just a few examples…

There are so many ways you can train your body and mind at the same time. Do a difficult task daily, one that pushes your existing comfort levels, because the more difficult you make your training, the easier your life will be. If your training is harder than the actual event, you’ll remain strong physically and, more importantly, you’ll remain strong mentally and emotionally. This will give you the edge you need over your competition.

Pain is subjective – it changes based on the perspective of who is going through the experience. Running a mile at a sub 6-minute clip is easy for those who do it consistently, but for the untrained person, this will probably be very painful. What will you do today to increase your fitness and increase your pain threshold?